


Unexpected

by crochetaway



Series: Hermione's Haven Bingo 2020 [18]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Huddling For Warmth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:22:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25509697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crochetaway/pseuds/crochetaway
Summary: Hermione Granger is running for her life when she stumbles across someone unexpected.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Thorfinn Rowle
Series: Hermione's Haven Bingo 2020 [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1833604
Comments: 10
Kudos: 135
Collections: Hermione's Haven Bingo 2020





	Unexpected

**Author's Note:**

> **Created for Hermione's Haven Bingo 2020 Fest! This is for my G3 square which was the prompt: Huddling for Warmth.**
> 
> **This was beta'd by the lovely brownlark42!**
> 
> **If you love this (or hate it) please let me know about in a review! Find me on Tumblr at crochetawayhpff.**

* * *

The third time Hermione stumbled, she couldn’t hold back the invective that had been circling around her mind for the last thirty minutes.

“Fuck,” she muttered as softly as she could. She thought she had lost them, but they were still out there looking for her. She could hear them through the trees as she crouched behind the log she had just tripped over. The night gave her good cover. Better cover than the middle of the day and the last time she had been running in the woods away from Snatchers. At least, Harry and Ron weren’t with her. She’d lost them that first time all those weeks ago.

It wasn’t like she hadn’t been looking for them. She had. But she feared the worst, especially since she hadn’t had any news from the wizarding world in weeks. The loss of the tent and the wizarding wireless was almost too much. It had crossed her mind that if she let the Snatchers catch her, that maybe they wouldn’t immediately kill her.

Maybe.

It wasn’t a sure thing, and that alone kept Hermione running.

Worse than death was the idea of one of the Snatchers raping her. She didn’t know for sure it happened, but she was suspicious enough to be terrified of it. Godric, she was sick of this bloody war. She wished she knew where anyone from her side was. The Burrow was empty, she’d checked. As was Grimmauld Place and the Lovegood’s home. She didn’t know where Neville lived, and that seemed like a terrible oversight on her part. Why hadn’t she bothered to learn where more of her classmates lived?

Hell, at this point, she’d gladly accept help from a Slytherin. She was desperate enough that it didn’t matter what form the help came in. She’d bloody take it.

“Over here!” a voice yelled, too close for comfort. Cursing under her breath, Hermione got into a crouch, trying to determine which direction was safest from her pursuers.

It helped that they were following the directions of the voice who had first called out. Once she was sure they were close, she fired off a spell into the distance. A huge crack, similar to Apparition reverberated throughout the forest and in the confusion, as most of the group turned toward it and began running, Hermione took off.

She’d cast a silencing spell on her sneakers and while it helped, it wasn’t perfect. She moved as swiftly as she could, trying to keep her breathing under control, but it was really difficult when all she wanted to do was panic. The panic was always there, hanging around at the edges of her consciousness, ready to take over if Hermione let it.

She wouldn’t though. Panic would help nobody and would likely get her captured, raped, tortured, and killed. In that order. So she shoved the panic down as much as she could as she ran.

Thankfully, the moon was bright enough to provide just enough light through the canopy that she was able to make her way toward the river she could hear in the distance. Water would help cover her tracks, and even better, maybe she could find an abandoned fishing shack to huddle in. Given enough time, she could ward it to the teeth and keep even the flies out.

She wasn’t sure, but she thought it might be September. The nights were starting to get cold, but it’s not like she had the means to check for sure what the date was. Even going into the smallest Muggle settlement was too risky. Many were equipped with Caterwauling Charms set to specific undesirables. Last she checked, she was still undesirable number two. And, oh, how that had chafed Ron.

She shook her head, just as she slid down the river bank and landed on a stony beach. She could feel her knees scrape against the rocks before she was able to come to a stop and muttered another curse under her breath. At least, she’d made it to the river. She had more important things to think about than Ron Weasley and his fragile fucking ego.

She stood and winced as the gravel crunched beneath her shoes. She tried to listen, but the noise of water was too loud. She couldn’t hear anything over it. Fuck.

She could at least pick her way across the river. That would help lose her scent if they were tracking her that way, and she had to believe they were. There was no other way they should have found her otherwise. It was dangerous to cross a river in the middle of the night. Especially an unfamiliar one, but she didn’t have much choice. She was a strong swimmer, she still had her wand, and had learned a handy charm that would temporarily glue it to her forearm. Not even a disarming charm could pull it from her then.

It did make casting more difficult, but the thought of losing her wand in the water scared her more than almost anything else. Without a wand, she might as well give up. Decided, she cast the charm and began wading out into the river. So far, it was just bloody cold, but not too deep.

Just as she thought it though, she stumbled and was suddenly chest-deep in water.

“Shite,” she muttered, her teeth wanted to chatter, but she clenched her jaw shut and continued making her way across the river. The water wanted to carry her downstream, so she walked in that direction, while still working toward the other side. It was easier than trying to fight the current. She stumbled again and her head slipped under water for a moment, so she went with it and swam for a bit. When she found her footing she continued making her way toward the far side of the river. Scrambling up the bank on the other side, she shivered just as she heard a shout from behind her.

“Motherfu—” she cut herself off and hurried to get behind the tree line. Crouching, she cast a few drying and warming spells as quickly as possible, hoping they weren’t looking for magical traces. She paused for a long moment, trying to listen to the conversation happening on the other side of the river and down aways, but it was too difficult to make out. She could only keep going, so she did.

While she would have preferred to stay along the river, it wasn’t in her best interest. She needed to put as much distance between the Snatchers and her. She really hoped the river would make them give up, but it had been at least an hour now and they were still chasing her. It made her wonder if they realized exactly who she was or if they were just particularly tenacious.

She had definitely bought herself a little time yet. There was no tell-tale splashing, meaning they weren’t yet attempting to cross the river to get to her. Leaving her wand on her forearm for the moment, Hermione began making her way as quickly and as quietly as she could to deeper parts of the forest.

She’d been walking for about twenty minutes when she spotted what looked like an old hunting cabin. There had been no sight or sound of her pursuers since she’d started. Hopeful, she sped up to try and reach the hunting cabin as quickly as possible. It looked abandoned and she almost turned back before she realized that someone else had already put up wards. It was tempting to turn around, but the shack truly looked abandoned. Perhaps the wards were forgotten by someone?

Or…

She tried to not get excited, but the idea that the wards let her through might mean that it was someone friendly inside the hunting shack. The closer she crept the less likely it seemed as she would assume anyone who put them up would at least open the door to figure out who was approaching.

Abandoned then. She tried to not let the disappointment get to her, but Merlin, she could have used a stroke of luck for once.

She checked all around the small cabin, making sure she hadn’t missed anything, and finding she hadn’t, she released the charm on her wand and gingerly opened the door. She fully expected the hinges to creak, but the fact that they didn’t made her think that perhaps it wasn’t as abandoned as she had thought.

Unwilling to be out in the open more than absolutely necessary, she slipped inside quickly. Without bothering to check further into the cabin, she began casting wards on the entire structure. Sneaking into the Headmaster’s office had been worth it considering all of the wards she had learned. She’d even found masking ones, ones that made it hard for even wizards to penetrate because they wouldn’t feel the magic of the wards. Those were the ones she did last, after fully cloaking the cabin.

It took her ten minutes to ward the cabin entirely, which was a record but spoke to how ready she was for a bit of rest. Finding the cabin was the luckiest thing that had happened to her for a long while and she was determined to make it last as long as she could. Before her paranoia began to eat at her.

Finally, she looked around to find a lump lying on the only bed in the small room. It was distinctly human-shaped.

“Fuck,” she muttered, her wand out as she slowly approached the bed. She was terrified by who she possibly just locked herself in with and was praying for a Muggle. A Muggle she could overpower, while not ideal, it was better than the alternative.

“Those are some fancy wards,” the lump rumbled before breaking off into a coughing fit.

“Double fuck,” Hermione whispered. “Who are you?” She held her wand at the ready. “Roll over, nice and slow, I have my wand on you.”

“Don’t want any trouble,” the wizard said before being overcome by coughs. He sounded horrible, with pneumonia if Hermione guessed correctly by the sound of his breathing. His lungs crackled ominously.

“Godric, how long have you been here?” Hermione muttered as the wizard turned to face her. She held her wand aloft, the light pouring into his face and was struck by how terrible he looked, flushed with fever and sweat.

“A few weeks. I got too weak to move a couple of days ago,” the wizard said weakly, coughing more.

“Merlin, you need more potions than I can give you,” Hermione muttered, coming to kneel by his side so she could dig through her beaded bag. She would have to brew some potions if he was going to live. “How long has the crackling been going on?”

“Three days,” he said. She looked up at him again, his face was full of matted beard hair. A dark, sandy blonde that she didn’t quite recognize. His eyes were sharp, bright blue, although they looked dull and unfocused. “Rowle?”

It was her luck that she stumbled across a dying Death Eater. She should let him die and move on, but that wasn’t really in Hermione’s nature. “Accio wand,” she said under her breath, but nothing happened.

“Lost--,” he replied just as he was overcome with another coughing fit, and he rolled onto his side trying to keep his body steady.

It explained why the wards were so weak and why he hadn’t left to seek help. He was probably too sick to even cast anything, but Hermione wasn’t going to take any chances if she could help it. “How long have you been coughing?”

Rowle coughed instead of acknowledging her and Hermione shoved a Pepper-Up Potion in his hand the moment he was done. “Take that. It won’t fix anything, but should alleviate the coughing.”

Hermione knew her wards would hold, she just hoped Rowle would last through the night. There was nothing she could brew with the ingredients she had on hand to help him. She really needed some feverfew and honey if she could find it to brew an effective potion against pneumonia.

“Why you helping me?” Rowle said after the steam had finished pouring from his ears. He sounded better, less strained. Hermione hoped it would be a good thing.

“I’m not a murderer,” Hermione muttered. “And I can’t undo the wards to chuck you out, nor do I want to listen to you cough yourself to death.”

“Bleeding heart Gryffindor,” he murmured.

“You know who I am?” Hermione asked, eyeing him carefully. They hadn’t ever been properly introduced to one another, but had faced off in battle at least twice that she could recall.

“Undesirable number two, Hermione Granger at my service,” he said, a slight lift to his lips, his face clearing of the fever haze. She narrowed her eyes at him. Apparently, the Pepper-Up was working.

“You’ve got jokes,” she deadpanned. “I’ll have to wait until my pursuers are gone to go out and get what I need to actually treat the pneumonia. I trust we can have a truce in place while I’m here?” Hermione leveled her wand at him. She needed him to know she was serious, even if he was too weak to do much about it now.

Rowle held up his hands. “I won’t be doing anything to hurt you,” he promised. “Honestly, I’m glad you came along. Not sure I would last much longer on my own.” His breathing was labored and he laid back down again, body shaking.

“Probably not. It would have been a slow, painful death,” she agreed. Standing, Hermione took in the shack once more. It wasn’t much. Besides the bed Rowle was lying on there was a wood-burning stove in one corner, with a small worktop and a table with one chair along the other wall. Her options for getting rest were very limited. The floor or huddling with Rowle.

She didn’t want to risk a fire in the stove. She hadn’t cast any wards to keep smoke at bay, and who knew if the stove even worked. Or if there was any wood to go in it. It was too risky. For now, she needed to hunker down, get some rest, and by morning her pursuers would surely be gone.

“Budge up,” Hermione said, toeing off her sneakers. She could at least be a little comfortable if she was forced to sleep next to Rowle.

“You getting in here, princess?” Rowle asked, a full-blown smirk on his face. He scooted as close to the wall as he could get, lifting the blankets.

“Nothing to be done for it now,” Hermione said. “The Snatchers are probably still out there, and don’t think you’re safe, just because you’re a Death Eater. The Snatchers aren’t on anyone’s side. If you want to take your chances with them, be my guest, but I need some bloody sleep.”

“Go hang out with some smelly Snatchers or snuggle with the Gryffindor Princess? This is truly a difficult choice,” he patted the bed.

“Hands to yourself, Rowle. I’ll remind you who has the wand here,” she warned.

“I wouldn’t do anything you didn’t like,” he promised.

“As if you’d have the energy,” Hermione muttered. She was reminding herself, but just to be safe, she performed the charm that stuck her wand to her forearm. No way was she giving Rowle an opportunity at it.

Gingerly, she sat down on the small bed, Rowle still held the blankets aloft and had one arm out, to provide a pillow for her. She frowned at him over her shoulder.

“The bed is too small for us not to cuddle,” he replied with a half-smile. “Besides, we’re both fully clothed, and as you pointed out, I’m much too weak to actually start something. However much I’d want too,” he added.

Rolling her eyes, Hermione laid down. Godric, it felt good to rest her body, and Rowle was more comfortable than she would admit. It felt like it might take her ages to fall asleep, but she nodded off quickly. Rowle pulled her close and his body warmth and steady breathing pulled her into the land of dreams.

_**~Fin~** _


End file.
